the point of infinity
by MyLadyElise
Summary: When Caroline rejected Klaus's advances, she never would have expected to spend her undead life with him. Klaroline through the ages. AU after 3.18: The Murder of One.


**the point of infinity**

Author's Note: Thanks to my beta Anastasia Dreams. This story was written originally in April 2012 near the very beginning of the Klaroline phenomenon, so it is definitely AU. I have no doubt that it is somewhat OOC now as I haven't watched the show in over two years and have no idea how these characters have developed.

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><p><em>You have to adjust your perception of time when you become a vampire Caroline. ~ Klaus<em>

_One thing he's learned over a thousand years is a bit of patience. If at first you don't succeed, you've got to try, try and try again. There's no way he's going to give up on her. She's the first person to catch his eye in centuries. He really is fascinated by this girl. And he really genuinely believes that he can show her a world that she deserves to have that is her right as a vampire. He wants her to embrace the creature that she has become. He believes he is the person who can help her do that. I think he's not going to give up. He may have to wait a year or 10 years or a hundred years. But if he's focused on that, he'll find a way to get it. He's not used to taking no for an answer, that's for sure. ~ Joseph Morgan_

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><p>It's 2012 and she's still Caroline Forbes, staying up late and dabbling in make-up and clothes with her oldest friends when she isn't plotting the demise (or not) of 1000 year old vampires. She still groans good-naturedly at Elena's eternal love triangle, and nods sympathically for Bonnie missing Jeremy, and worries over Tyler who still isn't free.<p>

She doesn't think about her never-ending future.

She doesn't want to think how they will all be dead in a 100 years except for herself and the Salvatores.

So, she runs out to the mailbox like every other senior, eagerly checking items and addresses and trying to judge an answer by the envelope's weight. She's still honour roll Caroline, Caroline of a dozen school events and charities and she _knows_ that she'll be accepted somewhere.

She used to dream of NYU and UCLA.

Now she dreams of UVA and George Mason and staying near her mother while she still lives.

The awaited letter comes, complete with Cavalier seal. Her mom cries and hugs her and tells everyone that her daughter won a scholarship to UVA. Just like her father. At least she's done something for which her father can be proud – if he knew. She tells him anyway and leaves a tiny Cavalier mascot at his grave. She can feel Steven's smile through the phone and her hand shakes when he promises to be at her graduation.

She still wants that dream – college – and can't let her undead life and drama get in the way – not for this.

It's prom and its campy, but it's Titanic, because it's been 100 years – and everyone still sighs over Jack and Rose. There are wooden crates and anchors for decorations and a make-shift Renault – and if you don't look too closely at the cardboard and PCP pipes and plexiglass, it looks just like the car that Jack and Rose made love in. And the White Star Line emblem everywhere. There's even a Grand Staircase for pictures and the crowning of king and queen. Every girl makes her date kiss her hand.

_I saw that in a Nickeloden once ..._

Caroline tries not to think that it is a monument to disaster – an ironic tribute to every Mystic Falls High School dance.

Tyler's back but he's still not free, so she goes with Matt and holds back tears when Rebekah clings to Tyler in revenge.

Dancing with Matt is like coming home, and after a while, he won't be here anymore just like her father, and someday just like her mother and Bonnie and Jeremy – and if Klaus has his way, just like Elena. She hugs him just a little tighter and enjoys his breath at her neck. She loves him differently than Tyler, but she may just love him forever.

She will not notice the slick, panther grace of the shadowed figure in the corner, watching protectively over his sister. I've never had a prom! Rebekah had protested after a committee meeting. She had wormed her way in, and Caroline suspects she always had. She cannot argue with the girl for that. Caroline is still Miss Mystic Falls and can understand why a teen girl needs that – even 1000 year old teen girls. She can see her shouting at Klaus the very same reason, and Klaus giving in to her. For all their differences, Caroline can understand him a little. When he _really_ cares, he will give you the world. A prom is not so much to ask.

She's in the corner, sipping too fruity punch with a grimace while Matt dances with Elena. "What are you doing here?" Her tone lacks its usual bite ever since she found out about the bloodline. They are even now (somehow, somewhat), but that does not mean they'll ever be friends.

"Just making sure that your friends are not harbouring any murderous tendencies, love," he answers.

"That's rich coming from you," she retorts with a sidelong glance. He wears a long-tailed coat, probably to blend in with the chaperones. It resembles the tux he wore at the Mikaelson ball months ago. He should always dress so, she thinks irritably.

"One can't be too easy. There are Salvatores here, after all," he says.

Well, yeah. But she can kind of see his point.

He doesn't know that her friends can't kill him now – not for Tyler and Damon and Stefan and _her_. He saved her life once and she appreciates that irony.

"I'm sure that Rebekah can handle herself," she says instead.

He smiles quite proudly, and she _really_ hates his dimples. Villians should not have dimples.

"You look ravishing as always, Caroline."

And damn him, if he isn't the one who kisses her hand in the shadows of the Grand Staircase.

* * *

><p>It's the summer before college and she's always had this picture in her head. A campfire at the Chesapeake and hotdogs and marshmellows and stolen beer – laughing and excited and sad to leave home behind forever. Just like one of those commercials or 80s teen movies.<p>

She wants to kiss her boyfriend in the sand and not worry about dying.

So, she shows up at Klaus's mansion one day, reasoning that if he can give Rebekah a prom, then he can give her one night of freedom with Tyler.

_I fancy you._

She falters at the door.

She doesn't notice the figure watching her leave.

But she still has her day at the Chesapeake, complete with a still brooding Stefan. He's still recovering blood-oholic Stefan, but he's still her friend. So, Damon's there too, because of Stefan, because of Elena, and there is rather more brooding than her original picture. But things are changing and she needs them all together one more time.

She already misses Elena who picked George Mason University to be near Mystic Falls and Jeremy and Alaric (_read_ Stefan and Damon), and Bonnie who's taking a gap year for herself. And Tyler who is not going to college at all.

She'll have them on the weekends but it won't be the same.

At least she has Matt who is going to UVA on a football scholarship. He deserves a bit of normalcy after all this drama. She doesn't think he'll ever be back to Mystic Falls.

She also wants a break from the vampire drama, but she knows it will follow her forever.

But she won't think about that. She kisses Tyler in the sand and loves the way the flames flicker in his eyes – just as she pictured. She won't think that he could kill her.

* * *

><p>She is at freshmen orientation with Matt on the Lawn of the Academical Village listening to student volunteers recounting the University of Virginia's history. She stares down at the packet, the blank line for major mocking her. Matt has already jotted down political science. How does she pick a major to last for an eternity?<p>

Being a vampire makes decisions far more dangerous, she thinks and shoves the paper to the back of her folder. She pulls Matt up to follow the other students into the Rotunda.

She wishes Bonnie and Elena were here.

At Christmas break, she kisses Tyler and tries not to cry. Everything is the same and different. He is still sired and there is still vampire drama. A new Big Bad. A new unfortunate alliance.

This time she does not falter at Klaus's door.

He's still the enemy (and not) and he will still give her the world but not Tyler.

Klaus calls her love and gives her those long, slow looks that shouldn't make her shiver.

She hates him.

But she'll help them all take down Tatia and Esther.

In the summer, Klaus leaves her more gifts and drawings. She doesn't wear them or look at them, but she doesn't throw them away.

He wants to make a deal with the Salvatores for Elena's blood.

"Never," Damon snarls and Stefan is not far behind.

But really – what can they do? They can't kill Klaus and Klaus still needs Elena's blood.

Another stalemate.

He's still trying to force loyalty rather than instill it.

_Your father didn't love you so you assume no one else will either._

"I have all the time in the world, love," he answers her frustrated retort. He's outlived their many attempts at his life; he'd outwait them too. He won't give up.

He still offers to show her the world – except she still needs this one. Her friends and her mom and her childhood home and all those human things like college while they still matter.

"Another time, then." He takes her hand, gently, and bows over it just like a prince in those costume dramas.

She doesn't see him for five years.

* * *

><p>It's 2018 and she's still Caroline Forbes. Matt is getting married to his college sweetheart and he's going to be a lawyer and change the world someday. He smiles at the first glimpse of his bride and her heart hurts quite literally. If Katherine had never smothered her that day, she might have been walking down the aisle on her father's arm. She might have. She likes to think that's the path her life would have taken.<p>

She hasn't had anyone in a really long time. And Elena is still mired in her eternal indecision between Stefan and Damon, and Jeremy just bought an engagement ring for Bonnie. She doesn't even have Tyler. What's the point of a boyfriend when you are afraid of his touching you?

So she escapes to London, a trip with her mother while she still can. They visit all the traditional sites like the Tower and Westminster and wait for August so that they can tour Buckingham Palace. They feel the Millenium bridge sway gently over the Thames, and buy gelato at Gelupo in Piccadilly Circus and walk to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. Liz loves Nelson's Column and how it seems to move in the sky. They buy £10 theatre tickets in the summer. She's never truly appreciated Shakespeare until she sees _Richard II_ at the Globe. They catch a revival of _Phantom of the Opera_ because she used to sing along on the CD with her mother and father – back when everything had been whole and perfect.

He's in the lobby of the Olivier Theatre at intermission, Rebekah on his arm.

A long, slow look like the one at the Mikaelson ball years ago, and he moves towards her. "Caroline," he says with a half-smirk as though merely saying her name was a pleasure.

_I enjoy you_.

"Klaus."

"So you have decided to see the world at last?"

"London with my mother. She deserves a vacation."

"Yes, I imagine she would."

"She works too hard." Had it always been so awkward to talk with him? She can't remember much beyond astonishment and flattery and insults and insight. Polite conversation is another matter.

He trails one long finger down her arm to the bracelet at her wrist. He smiles a little, sweetly, dimples just barely showing. "So you do wear it," he breathed. He gently toys with the metal, a finger caressing soft skin. "I promised to show you the world once, didn't I?" He tilts his head to the side a little, considering her, just as he had when she had been dying on her birthday.

_... genuine beauty ..._

"My mom and I always wanted to see London together," she explains, a little shaky. It's been too long since she's dealt with him and she feels wrong-footed and unsure.

He shows up at the oddest times.

At St. Paul's he tells them of a different London and the fire that destroyed nearly everything. Of old London Bridge, which was almost a city unto itself.

How is he allowed in a church? she wonders.

He invites them to dinner at the Greenhouse in Mayfair, and she would decline, but she's afraid of a scene.

They don't know the place, but a look in Fyodor's guide tells them that it is one of the most expensive restaurants in the city. Rebekah shows up with a dozen boxes on a mission from Klaus. She is to be their stylist, apparently. Liz is still Caroline's mother and cautious, but Klaus has put them all through so much, what is a few hundred pounds in comparison?

She holds up Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen gowns to them and chats like any teen girl. She might have been Caroline's friend if they had not been on opposite sides in Mystic Falls. But Mystic Falls is so far away, and Caroline can hardly resist someone's loneliness.

After all, loneliness is what got her involved with Tyler, keeps her friends with Stefan, and allows her to tolerate Klaus's attentions.

Klaus seems very pleased with the result.

It's awkward and weird, and Rebekah is still catty, but Klaus is charming and woos her mother like he woos her.

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><p>She's really glad for that English summer with her mother, because four years later, Liz dies in a car accident – a true, honest to God, accident. Caroline doesn't know what to do with herself or how to survive this gaping wound. Liz's death is different, more aching than her father's passing. She's always had Liz, her anchor to humanity for so long and now she will never, ever have again – not even that promised reunion in Paradise, that steadfast promise that priests always murmur in comfort at hospital beds. Caroline cries at the words of the Last Rites for an entirely different reason.<p>

Love survives even death, Father Paul says, letting his hand rest on her shoulder as she stares down into her mother's still face.

Yes, it does. But will it survive an eternal separation?

She doesn't know what happens to vampires after death, but she knows all the stories of eternal punishment for evil.

She cries and wails in the living room of her childhood home.

Klaus is there, somehow. She doesn't remember his entrance, but she leans against him on the floor, pressing her knees into his thighs to hold herself up, and allows him to brush her hair and shush her. The air that she doesn't need seems somehow trapped inside. He presses his lips against her hair. He doesn't say it's okay and everything will be fine, because it won't. She feels steadier. He has survived a 1000 years. That should be some comfort.

"Tell me how to do this," she whispers.

"You just do it." As if that is some sort of answer. It kind of is.

She looks up and into his eyes and for the first time ever, she doesn't see the monster at all. He is Niklaus whose mother betrayed him and father never loved him, who wanted his family so bad that he put them in boxes so no one could touch them. It's terrible and twisted, but she understands it now.

If she could put Liz into a box until the danger passed and wake her up with just the fleeting movement of a undaggered stroke, she so would.

He goes to her mother's funeral, but stays in the back.

She reads a passage from a note that he left at her home that morning, a quote from St. Augustine: "Love never disappears ... you and I are the same; what we were for each other, we still are ..."

Nearly everyone cries, and even Damon looks down at his feet, Elena leaning into him. In the midst of all this grief, she envies them that closeness. They'll always be what they are to each other till the end of the world.

Klaus leaves an antique carved box on her doorstep containing an even older rosary. Coming from him, the gift should be obscene. But it isn't.

He signs the card, _Until then, Niklaus_. He'll never be just Klaus to her again.

* * *

><p>She's 28 and renegotiating a truce with Klaus. He knows now they can't kill him.<p>

Give him a inch and he takes a whole mile, she thinks.

And yes, she's Klaus bait again. If you could call it bait. Really, it is a set-down dinner at the boarding house. And they all look a little too young for their supposed human ages.

Caroline cannot help laughing that the Stefan/Elena/Damon triangle has taken on a whole other weird dimension – a cradle-robbing dimension that makes Stefan and Elena's anguished looks a little too creepy.

Besides the shades of disillusion or practicality that time has brought to Elena's tone, she _looks_ more suited to Damon now; she'll always look more suited to Damon now.

And Caroline? She's just the moderator in their endless power struggle.

"I get that you're friends with Original Barbie over there," Damon smirks at Rebekah's snarl. "But this is not up for discussion."

Caroline rolls her eyes. Some things will always be the same. "You might want to vary your insults, Damon," she says.

"No, it's not up for discussion," Klaus says and leans back in deceptive nonchalance, throwing a look at his sister. "I suggest that you get your witch to find another way, Damon. I'm running out of patience."

Klaus threatens Bonnie in his snarky, underhanded way, and Caroline is surprised but she's not. She still knows what he is, even if he never turns that side to her anymore.

Elena gasps, and Caroline frowns at Klaus. She sees only Bonnie, smiling and holding baby Jenna up to a proud Jeremy, so sweetly mortal. They don't deserve to be drawn into this vampire drama still. But they will be, because of Klaus and Elena and this eternal stubborness.

"You see, sweetheart," Klaus addresses Elena, "I need that blood to actually _work_ in order to make my hybrids. Otherwise, I would have used up Katerina centuries ago."

Elena's eyes dart between the two Salvatores and Caroline reckons that she must have scolded them for any outbursts before their arrival. "Then, I'll find a way," she says. The Petrova line has to end some way. And isn't it ironic that out of all of them, it is Elena who _chooses_ her fate?

Caroline reaches across the table to take her friend's hand, still warm and fragile for awhile yet. "Elena ..."

"No, Caroline don't," she warns, her eyes hard, and nods towards the two Originals.

"Don't" is what Caroline says to Klaus as he reaches for her when they leave. He can't be evil Hybrid Klaus and then steady, patient Niklaus to her. It doesn't work that way.

He pulls up, stands still beside Rebekah when she doesn't call him Niklaus.

"Those hybrids insure our survival, Caroline," he explains.

_Our_ in that pointed tone and she wonders when she became part of that "our" in the same breath with his sister. But she's still Caroline Forbes, so she still stands up for her friends, even though she sees his side too. "You can't just threaten my friends and expect me to be okay with that."

He stares at her for a moment, but he won't burst into a rage. Not yet.

"Fine then, _love_. Play their lapdog. I don't care, but I'll do what I want."

Caroline scoffs, but she trembles too.

"We're leaving," he says to Rebekah, who will follow as she always does. He doesn't ask Caroline to come along.

Rebekah gives her a parting bit of advice. "You can't expect someone to change who they are after a 1000 years of existence. Not for anyone."

Later Elena asks, "How can you be their friend after all they've done?" Her tone more confused than accusatory.

Caroline doesn't explain, because she can't. Are they friends? She doesn't bring up Elijah, who nearly always gets a free pass from her friend. So, instead she says, "When you become a vampire, Elena, you're going to see that things are not so black and white."

Damon and Stefan don't approve, but they acknowledge her point. If you live long enough, there are always going to be skeletons and monsters. Sometimes, they are your own.

And forever is too long.

Bonnie finds a way, because that's what she does. So, Klaus gets his hybrids and Elena gets her immortal triangle with the Salvatore brothers.

But Bonnie is through and tells Elena and Damon and Caroline – no more. She has a husband and a child and another on the way and she won't risk that for any friend.

Caroline understands even if she is sad, but she thinks that another human part of her has just died.

* * *

><p>She's in Montreal and she's dying. A werewolf. Except this time, there is no Klaus just across the city.<p>

Stefan makes frantic calls and looks at her desperately.

It's not her birthday after all, and there's no one to save the day.

_I could let you die, if that is what you want._

Her voice is already weak when she asks Elena to hand her a carved box by her bed. She likes the rough feel of antique beads between her fingers, and thinks that it was, after all, a good gift. He always did have good taste.

"They won't answer my fucking calls," Stefan growls and throws his phone against the wall.

"Well then, brother, maybe you should use Vampire Barbie's?" Damon offers in his insufferable smirk, holding up Caroline's sleek pink phone.

Funny how that name does not bother her anymore.

Elena bathes her brow and whispers comfort. "I'm not going to lose you, Care. We'll find a way." Even vampire Elena is still optimistic and stubborn.

Caroline smiles weakly. She might be dying, but they need the comfort more. They've got an eternity to get through. The last thing she hears for awhile is Elena's shushing.

She dreams of her mother putting her to bed in her Little Mermaid pajamas, of her father putting on the soundtrack and they sing and hum "Part of Your World" together. She was a princess, didn't you know? And she was meant for more than Mystic Falls. In the bath, she was a mermaid and at Halloween, she wanted red hair. And she always dreamed of an Eric to take her far away to his castle, especially when her parents fought, and fought over her.

But she got turned into something else, and she got to see some of the world, even if she never got a castle.

"It's okay," she might have whispered, but she can't tell.

"We've got to stop meeting like this, love," he teases, though his tone is solemn. He takes Elena's place and carresses her burning cheek, and notes the rosary twisted about her hand.

_So you do wear it._

She thinks she's hallucinating.

"But it's not my birthday." She can't quite focus, but she recognises blue eyes.

He smiles wistfully. "Nevertheless."

"I didn't want to die, did I?"

"Not even when I offered," he answers, softly and moves her closer and into his arms.

She moans, but can't muster the energy to wince.

"I promised you a thousand more birthdays and I mean to keep my promise. Drink love." He presses his wrist to her lips. He's never offered anyone else a wrist, blood at the tap. But she won't know that now.

She closes her eyes and bites with a moan. She doesn't know if it is the time past or that she is so much the further gone, but this is a very good illusion, and his blood tastes sweeter than she ever remembers.

* * *

><p>It's 2049 and she is Caroline Forbes, gypsy. She can't go back to Mystic Falls and she doesn't really want to meet phantom memories of her parents and lost friends.<p>

Everything is different and nothing is the same.

Even when she meets up with Tyler on a beach in Thailand.

He trails a few local beauties, but dismisses them to sit with Caroline. She thinks about the last time she kissed him in the sand, but that's another world.

He half-flirts, like always, and is curious about her now. They trade notes of places they've been, of friends they knew, and it's almost like Mystic Falls 2010.

His mother is dead and she presses his hand, just as he had pressed hers at her mother's gravesite years ago.

"I'm not sired anymore," he says suddenly.

She doesn't know how to look or what to say. She can't remember what it felt like to love him or want him. And isn't that strange? Sired and all, how could she leave him if she loved him? How does she not feel anything now?

But he seems not to expect an answer.

And that's it. No grand finale for their teenaged star-crossed love. A fizzle, not a bang.

* * *

><p>Endless life does not mean endless opportunities. No one tells you that when you turn.<p>

Not the opportunities that matter any way. To play the human for as long as possible. No one tells you that time moves faster.

It's 2066 and Elena calls to tell her that Matt has died, a heart attack, and would she like to sneak back to Mystic Falls.

No.

In her mind, they are still JFK and Jackie at the school dance, handsome and young and almost free.

She loved that Matt forever.

_Is this burning an Eternal Flame?_

But she isn't that Caroline Forbes.

She doesn't want to see how everything (everyone) has changed.

But she does go back five years later to hide in the shadows and hold Elena together when Jeremy is gone.

Some things turn up in the oddest places at the oddest times – like Alaric's lost white oak dagger in a safety deposit box after Jeremy is dead.

Stefan wants to burn it and let all the Originals think it's still out there. He is a little vengeful yet.

But they are all tired of struggle.

Tired, worn, but still fierce, Bonnie presses it to Caroline's hand. She could be their grandmother now, but Caroline can still see the earnest girl who pled for Jeremy's life against all the supernatural powers, who cried when her mom left, and who only asked for a normal life. For all the years and loss and age, Bonnie and Caroline are still best friends forever. Caroline is still the girl who understood and never demanded much beyond being there (not even the right to sympathise), and Bonnie will always trust that more than Elena's pushing comfort.

Elena is always going to be caught in Salvatore sibling rivalry.

Damon and Stefan will keep on fighting, regardless of the result – because that is nearly all they've done in over 200 years. They'll still die for each other, but they'll break against each other too.

And as Bonnie said years ago, she's done.

"End it, Caroline." She goes back to her Gilbert grandchildren, crowding in the kitchen.

Caroline stares at the dagger and Damon and Stefan and Elena stare at her.

Damon starts to move forward, and Caroline hugs the stake ironically to her heart. Elena's arm on his makes him pause. "Just what will you do, Blondie?"

"I'm not – It should be destroyed." No one else should be involved. All Salvatore plans end in bloodshed, and she is really the only (kind of) neutral party.

"What if we need the stake, Care?" Elena's eyes dart worriedly between the brothers, but it's out of her hands now. No one should be hurt, Elena always says, but someone always is. When it comes down to it and Elena is sure that Damon and Stefan are safe (and Caroline – she's always the parenthetical in their story), she'll still dagger Klaus or Rebekah or Kol and even Elijah and damn a whole line.

Caroline can't let that happen.

She shows up on Klaus's doorstep outside of Vancouver, flinching inwardly that this is not quite what Bonnie had intended. But it will still be gone.

_Everyone_ will need proof that it is gone.

She's relieved when the honourable and rational Elijah opens the door – but she still brushes past him.

Best over and done with.

"Niklaus," she shouts and her voice echoes across the foyer and gallery. His homes are always impressive, but they are more like museums.

Almost a flash, he is there, surprised by her appearance – but as always pleased. He rests his hands along her hips and breathes into her ear, "What do I owe this pleasure, love?" And glides his lips down the edge of her jaw to press a welcome kiss to her neck.

She closes her eyes and the bag at her shoulder falls to the ground. His need to touch, to feel things has always surprised her – but it's the thing she always most understood about him. She didn't always trust him, and she may not even completely now – trust him not to turn off his humanity. But she trusts this connection.

Elijah clears his throat to excuse himself and Caroline is brought back to the task at hand.

"No, don't leave," she says and pulls away from Klaus a little to retrieve her bag. "I've brought something, but I think that we need a little fire in the back yard first."

Rebekah and Kol are out exploring the nightlife of Los Angeles and it's just Elijah and Klaus in not-quite-domestic-harmony. And Caroline is still a moderator in a power struggle.

The three of them watch the last embers die in the ash, which Elijah collects to toss into the ocean. Caroline takes pictures and requests more from Elijah to send to Elena. And then, he's gone.

Klaus has been distant since she first produced the stake, as though he can't quite make out her motives – which she just a little bit resents.

"Are there more?"

"No, this is the last. I'm sure of it." She doesn't want to _have_ to point out that she brought it to _him_ to watch it burn.

"But how do _we_ know?"

Caroline starts. "Do you not believe me?" She doesn't want him to remember or bring up before. It's been too long and she cannot bear to recall the look on his face.

_What have you done?_

They've moved past that, haven't they? They've both tried to kill each other at different points, but it's in the past and the past can't change. She needs _this _now, this world and somehow him, and he needs to understand. For all their time together, they're still rubbish with words when it really counts. So she takes his face into her hands and looks straight into his eyes. "Look. I promise there is no more. Compel me. Read my thoughts. Trust me." _I'll trust you._

His features soften and he leans a little into her caress. "I want to, love."

"Then just do it," she whispers, mimicing his words when she first began to trust him.

"Caroline …"

"I've been searching for decades. We've all been searching. That stake was Alaric's lost dagger and now it's burnt up forever." Her hands drop to his shoulder and she's not quite sure what to make of his silence. He's never silent.

"Well then, love, we should celebrate," he smiles and she hugs him tight and feels him start and hold her back. She can still surprise him.

She hopes the end never comes, not for him, not for her, not for any of them. She cannot bear to think that anyone ceases to exist, that this flesh and bone and matter could be nothing but a rubbery silent shell or dust, indifferent to warmth or rain or the way his hands glide across her back even now. She had once (briefly) been at peace with dying because she had missed and needed her mother. But, she finds the longer you live, the more you need that life. Humans have such a short reign, of course they do not so much mind the leaving.

She knows he will send his hybrids to investigate. He might trust her, but he'll never trust _them_.

* * *

><p><em>I'll take you. Anywhere you want.<em>

She's Caroline Forbes of Paris now and though she been here before, she loves to see the city through Niklaus and Rebekah's eyes.

She's sharing a flat with Rebekah in Montmartre, where she can hear the bells toll at Sacre Coeur. She thinks she is the only vampire in the world drawn to cathedrals and churches, but the rituals and artwork still have meaning for her – even if she never cared for them as a human girl.

She's sure Stefan would have something deep to say about that quirk, because he's still brooding Stefan and redemptive Stefan.

Niklaus knows _all _about the artwork and drags her across the city to every church and chapel to see frescoes and ceilings and sculptures, and even into closed medieval chapels and points out markings in the walls that stonemasons left behind 800 years ago when they couldn't read.

They drink copious amounts of wine and champagne in the cafes in the evening, a nice little insular world with only Kol dropping by to steal Rebekah away and Elijah checking in.

Niklaus takes her to the Paris Opera House and tells her the true story of the Phantom. She doesn't tell him that she knew, because it doesn't seem important. She likes how he tells the stories of the past and wishes she could see the cities as he does.

He wants to show her everything he loves about the city, his favourite in the world.

On the Left Bank, he pulls her past the flying buttresses of Notre Dame, despite her protests to see the home of Quasimodo. She loved that cartoon as a child. And yes, she knows about flying buttresses and the Rose Window because of Niklaus. They've been many times.

Instead, he pulls her into Shakespeare & Company, the oldest English language bookstore in Paris, and tells her all about the original, of Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound and the Fitzgeralds and later how this present second store used to house artists for free in the rooms upstairs.

"Anyone could come, stay a month, a whole year – as long as you had a painting, a novel in progress. Allen Ginsberg stayed here once."

"Did you?"

He smiles at her. "I might have."

She laughs at the image of him as a Beat, dressed all in black, smoking cigarettes, and debating the illusion of existence. She's never met anyone more alive.

Niklaus doesn't always play the tourist guide.

He still draws her and buys her gifts. She keeps them all in scrapbooks. Sometimes she wears the jewels and gowns. He paints her one day on her balcony, a filmy rose-coloured gown that makes her look like those old silent film actresses that Rebekah so loves.

They play at being young and rich, and they really do have the world at their feet. They go to vampire parties in the old catacombs – held in the old tradition of _bals des victimes_, and hosted by a French aristocrat turned during the Terror. Caroline finds it creepy but thrilling and ties the required red ribbon around her neck. Kol revels in it.

They compel invitations to the annual Versailles ball, and dance and drink all night beside nobles and deposed princes and pretenders to extinct thrones. Rebekah reminiscences about a young Louis XV and flirts with his descendant, and Kol flirts with everybody and makes crude remarks to his sister. Niklaus snarls away a prince asking for her hand to dance, and Caroline laughs and admonishes him, but at the end of the night, it's just the two of them. It's always just the two of them.

_There's a whole world out there waiting for you._

She wonders what the Caroline of Mystic Falls would have to say about her now.

Sometimes she forgets that he's still the Hybrid, and sometimes she forgets why that is important.

But he's Klaus and she's Caroline and it somehow works. It somehow fits.

He teaches her to "catch and release" one night and finishes the compulsion she cannot quite command. The boy stumbles away, and she cannot even cry. But she throws up on Klaus's new shoes, because humans are starting _not_ to matter as much.

She decides to visit the Salvatores.

* * *

><p>She's with Stefan in St. Petersburg. He needs to escape Elena and Damon and she is still nomad Caroline.<p>

She thought Rebekah would hate him forever, but forever has its limits. Rebekah is a little warm and Stefan is a little receptive and they are both lonely and still remember 1924.

Caroline wanders about the Winter Palace and Palace Square with a guidebook ap pulled up on her iPad version whatever, admiring all the sketches of previous incarnations of the palace and the obligatory portrait of Nicholas and Alexandra, and feeling a little lonely. Over the years, she's picked up French and Spanish, and a little Italian, but the Russian language still intimidates. She understands nothing around her, but she loves the way it sounds.

Still, St. Petersburg is not a city to experience alone, so she calls Niklaus and asks him to come. She's never done so before.

He's busy with hybrids in Sofia, Bulgaria, but he'll still come. She doesn't want to think about what he may have been doing.

For once, it's her meeting him at the airport with a smile.

She loves the low skyline and Baroque architecture, and how everything feels old, and the way that Klaus speaks Russian so easily, seductively. He reads Pushkin to her in the evenings with the smile.

_I have remembered love, mad love of former years,  
>And all that burned my heart, and all that filled with wonder…<em>

And tells her that she still makes his heart burn. And it isn't cheesy, because it's _him._

She doesn't know what to say, because she's never really good with words, so she presses her lips to the flesh above his heart. She smiles at his gasp. She can make him breathless too.

She thinks her heart might be burning too.

"Nik," she breathes against his neck, already dizzy and he's never even kissed her yet. Not in all the years. Not really.

But she thinks that sometimes things do move in slow motion, because he's pulling her up and threading fingers through her hair and brushing a thumb across her lips – and it's too slow. His eyes are as soft as she's ever seen them, blue like robin's eggs. She nips his thumb playfully, and barely lets him smile before she kisses him.

_Dear God, Caroline. Finally._

They still do all the tourist things like museums and churches and mosques, and he buys her clothes and jewelry and presents her with a tiara once owned by Alexandra.

_ it was worn by a princess almost as beautiful as you_

He'll still give her the world, but it isn't always about the things that he can give her. She scolds him for that too. She can't do the same for him. He's lived a thousand years and buys and takes anything he wants – and she can't compete or reassure in that way. Sometimes that is okay.

She gives him time, companionship, and that _unconditional_ he's never quite known. And he fills that aching gap of loneliness that her mortality left behind.

Unconditional.

She needs that too.

He never tells her that he loves her, but she can feel it all the same.

She knows what he is – She's not the silly little 17-year-old Virginia teen anymore. She seen almost a hundred years and lost nearly everyone that tied her to her former life. Thank God for Stefan and Elena and even Damon.

But St. Petersburg is where she first holds his hand and kisses his brow and kisses him and _sleeps _sleeps not (that way) sleeps with him and calls him Nik and breakfasts with him and sees his whole day.

* * *

><p>When she looks down the cobbled-stone street, the large stone buildings, crowded and rising some eight or nine stories high, she doesn't see the sleek retro cars and traffic lights. The last hundred years have taught her to see the timelessness in everything and she sees instead the long dead horse carts and teeming crowds emerging from the old catacomb hell-homes, Model Ts and dresses and hats and suits and everything crowded together in the centuries. She can see it all now as he must have seen it first.<p>

But Edinburgh has that charm – a Medieval city still.

Her favourite in all the world.

She should have loved Paris or London or Rome or Tokyo more. Mystic Falls Caroline would have. But Edinburgh will still be the same Edinburgh in 200 years and she needs that steadiness.

So Nik brings her back for her birthday – his favourite birthday – exactly 100 years ago today, he saved her life and promised her a whole new world.

It's 2112 and she's not really Caroline Forbes anymore – not the incarnation of 2010 or even 2052 – she's seen too much, done too much. But she's still Caroline who will love where she shouldn't, Caroline of second chances and third, who still clings to her childhood friend Elena and calls the Salvatores her vampire family now, but feels at home with Originals.

He gives her his most extravagant gift yet – the largest flat in the oldest building on the Royal Mile. She can see Edinburgh Castle from their bedroom. He'd give her that too – but even he cannot commandeer that castle anymore without garnering too much attention.

She might not have got her castle but she definitely got her prince – a little battered, most definitely wicked, but still a prince.

"I'd give you the world," he says, draping his arms about her waist and pressing a very welcome kiss to her neck.

She turns into him and takes one hand to hold it, playing with his fingers, and her bracelet falls down and catches between their hands. She never would have guessed that all the happiest times of her undead life would be tied to him – and all her saddest too. But he always gave the sad new meaning.

He wasn't her whole world and she would never want to be his. But he made her life richer.

"I don't want the world. I just want you." Even when she holds him, she can't quite make the words come out. _I love you_ isn't enough.

"I know," he murmurs. Has she said it after all? "I've been waiting for you to catch up."

She used to try to find meaning in her undead life, but now she understands that the point is just to live.


End file.
